Faculty Profile: Megan Sibbett

Faculty Profile: Megan Sibbett

Dr. Megan Sibbett is in her firth year developing a LGBTQ minor course of study within the OU Women's and Gender Studies and Social Justice program. Reared in the conservative state of Wyoming, she attended college in Idaho, Utah and later Texas. While working on her Ph.D. in San Antonio, Sibbett decided her career track would be LBGTQ curriculum development, and the University of Oklahoma was ripe ground to explore such a path.

She moved to Norman with her wife, Annemarie, who teaches composition in the English Department, and began developing the course work for the classes that now comprise the core curriculum for a minor in LGBTQ studies.

Upon arriving at OU, students might first hear of WGS and LGBTQ studies through their classmates at the LGBTQ lounge or through social media. They may be from emotionally supportive backgrounds or just beginning to explore their own orientation. They may already be part of the out community or have a need to better understand it for work in other disciplines.

LGBTQ minors and other interested students begin with an Introduction to Women and Gender Studies prior to focusing on a LGBTQ Introduction course. They then study LGBTQ Movements and round out the core program with Queer Theory.

"While there has been a dominate hetero-normative agenda since American colonization, these students, LGBTQ or not, must read about the oppression and the thought development that gave us the movement,” Sibbett said. “It isn’t sufficient to proceed on one’s own understanding because an individual identifies as LGBTQ; students must read the material and just keep working,” she added.

"My goal is to present students with a greater diversity of options to empower them in specialized fields which helps prepare them for the job market,” Sibbett said. Minors frequently go on to law school, advocacy groups or non-profit service organizations focused on social justice.

Following Sibbett’s own guidance “to just keep working,” WGS can expect to offer new and exciting classes emerging from this driven scholar.